Not
by soda-me
Summary: The papers were what started it. All Ponyboy did was read them, and wish he hadn't. What happens when he finds out something about himself that can never be erased no matter how much he wants it to be? And when he pushes Soda and Darry away...
1. The Papers

**Sorry, so sorry to any of you reading my other story, Dealing 2. This is the second time I've interrupted it to post new stuff! But I promise, I am not abandoning that one. In the mean time, here's something you can read. It was kicking around in my head for a while. So I got it out now. **

**Disclaimer: All I own is the plot. Everything else is S.E. Hinton's. **

**Not**

**Ponyboy's POV**

They were sitting there so innocently. Stacked up, in a locked box that I'd only gone into for my birth certificate. Our parents' strongbox, the one Darry had only gone into for their wills after they died. He couldn't have helped seeing the other papers in there, the ones I'd just seen now. He'd known. Maybe Soda had even known. But I hadn't.

I only needed the birth certificate for a class trip. Don't ask me why, something about "cracking down on safety regulations", part of the long speech they always give about trips like this. A trip I now highly doubted I would be going on, once I talked to my brothers about this.

Oh, excuse me, did I say talk? I meant once I _confronted _them about this, if that was even a strong enough word for it.

Anyway, the trip was a camping one, for class bonding or some shit like that. Trying to blend the Socs with the greasers, I guess. If anything it would make things worse. I would be all too happy to miss it. It was just about the only thing I was happy about then.

No wonder Darry had been hesitant about allowing me to go on the trip. But when he finally agreed, I didn't wait for his approval to grab my birth certificate. Why should I?

They were sitting there so innocently, those papers. I wish now I hadn't read them. I wish I'd just grabbed the thing I'd come for and shut the box, locking it when I left. But that's not what I did. Oh no, curiosity won me over, and I read that stack of papers.

Birth certificate: Darrell Shayne Curtis, Jr.

Birth certificate: Sodapop Patrick Curtis. (Probably made the government smile for once, his name.)

Birth certificate: Ponyboy Michael Curtis. It was what I'd gone in there for. I should have taken it and stopped going through the papers. I should have stopped my search. But instead I kept going.

My parents' wills. I didn't read them. We'd gone through them once, I didn't want to do it again. It still hurt too much.

Then, underneath those papers, were the pages that stopped my heart. I couldn't breathe, speak or move. All I could do was keep reading. Every. Last. Word.

And when I could breathe again, it took me a moment to register what I was feeling. I should be shocked, I thought. I should be angry, furious with everyone. But all I felt was numb.

**Okay. I may or may not continue this, depending on the feedback I get. You hate it? I can chuck it and go back to my other stuff. You like it? I may post more. Please review and help me decide!**


	2. The Truth

**Not—Part 2**

**Ponyboy's POV**

Numb. As in, not feeling anything. I almost wished I could stay like that, but in an instant all the feelings held at bay by the cold, unfeeling numbness washed over me. I was in a flood of emotions, drowning, trying to keep my head up. The numbness won. I still couldn't do anything but stare at those papers, the ones that told me so unflinchingly that everything I ever thought about myself wasn't true, that the truth was something I'd never really known in this house.

Did everybody know? Was I the only one who hadn't been told, hadn't been let in on this big secret? Did they whisper about me when I wasn't around, or had my back turned? Had I been the single solitary person left in the dark, when I was the one who should've been told from the start?

Did Steve and Two-Bit know? Had Dallas and Johnny known when they were alive? Could they really keep a secret like this for fourteen and a half years?

And did Darry know? He was my guardian, it was impossible for him not to have known. Why didn't he tell me? _Why did nobody tell me?! _

And worst of all, did Sodapop know? Did the person I trusted most in the world, the one to whom I told everything, the one who always listened to my problems, stuck up for me no matter what, stopped Darry from yelling at me, lost his girlfriend partly because of me, and the one I loved even more than my parents—did he know too? Had he been keeping this secret from me my whole life?

Then I stopped. It was unthinkable. There was so way Soda could have known about this and not told me. He was a terrible liar, it would have come out years ago if he was let in on it. And I just couldn't believe—didn't _want _to believe—that he would hide something like this from me, no matter how much he may have been trying to protect me. It just wasn't like Soda.

But Darry…he could have done this. If it was true—and how could it _not _be true?—he would remember. The secret would never have been a secret to him. Unlike Soda, he was able to keep a straight-face even better than I could, and I'd learned to be an expert liar. Yes, Darrel Shayne Curtis Jr. was capable of many things. Unfortunately, hiding this was one of them.

Was it true? Like I said, how could it not be true? The papers told me everything I needed to know and more, every hateful, drawn out detail. It was plain, clear writing, professional and uncaring. Unfeeling. Just like the numbness I was going through now. It didn't care who might find it and read it. It didn't care about me or what I might be feeling, if I could feel anything.

_How could it be true? How could they all have lied to me for so long? Mom, Dad, Darry, even Soda. Maybe I don't know any of them at all, maybe Soda was just pretending to be a bad liar in order to keep a bigger lie a secret. Mom, Dad, I need you here to tell me it isn't true…_

How could my life be falling apart because of a school trip?

How could I be adopted?

**Oh my gosh. I have already gotten way more reviews than I expected, and I thank you all a thousand times over! Satisfied with the new chapter? I've got another one coming. As soon as you review again! **


	3. Reacting

**Not—Part 3**

**Ponyboy's POV**

Adopted. The word had two meanings in my life. It meant my parents had chosen me, raised me even though I wasn't even their son. But it also meant that somebody, somewhere, hadn't wanted me, just needed to get rid of me. _I could've ended up anywhere, _I realized, _I should be glad that I got the home I did, with parents and two older brothers to take care of me. _

But I wasn't. I wasn't glad or thankful at all. The numbness was wearing off, and anger was taking its place. The cold, hard truth was I had been lied to. And not about anything small either, this was a lie about who I was, my whole life. _How could they not tell me? _

_Soda. I should talk to Soda._ Somewhere deep inside me that voice was nagging me, telling me to calm down and think things through before doing anything stupid. _Use your head. _Just like Darry always used to tell me. Maybe that was what made me snap, the thought of doing something Darry had drilled into my mind, when all the time he was hiding that secret from me. Whatever it was, I wanted to make Soda feel guilty. So I left the papers on his pillow for him to find. I wasn't going to talk to him. I was going to let them wonder where I was and tell each other, "We should have told him." Those would probably be Soda's exact words. I knew him so well…or I thought I had. We weren't even brothers. I was as related to him as Steve was. The thought made me sick. No wonder Steve had hated me tagging along as Soda's kid brother. He'd probably known the whole time that I wasn't a brother at all, just an annoying kid.

Something Johnny had told me once was now coming to mind. _"Your family sure is funny." _When I asked what he meant, he just said, _"I meant, well, Soda kinda looks like your mother did, but he acts just exactly like your father. And Darry is the spittin' image of your father, but he ain't wild and laughing all the time like he was. He acts like your mother. And you don't act like either one." _What had he really meant? That my "family" was funny because they never told me who I really was? Or had Johnny never known either?

I dropped the stack of papers on my middle brother's pillow. Even I couldn't think of him as not my brother when I looked at the bed we shared, still messy and unmade. And then I ran.

**Soda's POV**

"What the—" there was no curse suitable for what I was reading. I threw down the pieces of paper and hollered, "Ponyboy! _Ponyboy!_" But like I knew I wouldn't, I didn't get an answer.

_Adopted? _Impossible. Everybody talked about how much we looked alike. We had the same hair, almost, and our noses or something. Everyone compared us. But I looked more like Dad. How could Ponyboy not be my brother? I shook off the thought immediately. He was still my brother. No frickin' piece of paper was going to tell me he wasn't. But did he think the same?

I leaned against the wall behind the bed and strained my memory, trying to recall when Pony was born, the first time I met my brother, when he came home from the hospital. It was hard. I couldn't remember much that far back, and what I could was foggy and vague. I could see, faintly, an image of my mom holding Ponyboy down low so I could look at him. I touched his pink little cheek…Dad's voice was saying, _"This is your brother, Ponyboy" _…Darry was getting a turn to hold him…Ponyboy a few weeks later, crying in the room we shared even then…I let him play with my toy horses…but I couldn't for the life of me remember when my mom was pregnant.

Could that be because she never was pregnant? Because Ponyboy was really adopted, like the pages here said?

My heart kept arguing where my mind gave up. I didn't want to believe it, I didn't want to know. I wanted to go on, blissfully ignorant of what these papers said. I'm sure he did too.

He had to be angry, I reasoned. He must've run off somewhere. Maybe the lot? Or the park? Did he go see a movie? How could I explain to him all of this, when I could hardly believe it myself?

I went to Darry's room, put the papers on his pillow, and then I ran to find my little brother.

**Darry's POV**

Papers, one after the other, screaming the words at me off the pages, you lied! He knows you lied! This is all your fault!

When had Ponyboy found these and put them here for me to find? Or had Soda found out, and put them here as a warning that if I didn't say something soon, he would tell Pony instead? My mind was swimming as I commanded myself to stop panicking and use my head.

_Use my head. If I'd done that a long time ago we wouldn't be in this situation. All those years of telling him to think once in a while and I never did a thing right. If I had really thought about it, I wouldn't have even let Mom and Dad keep it a secret. _Now it was all too late.

Too late, too late, too late, the papers taunted me. Soda and Pony were both gone, but together or separately? How much did each of them know? For fourteen and a half years I was the only one who knew, because I was too old to simply forget, like Sodapop. No, I knew.

"Darry?" Mom said from their bedroom. I went in and sat next to her on the bed.

"_Yeah, Mama?" I still called her Mama then, when I was six. _

"_Ponyboy is adopted. You know that, right?" she asked, and Dad watched me carefully. A six-year-old only knew what he was told. All I knew was that I now had two brothers to watch out for. Only one of them, they'd said, was really not my parents' baby, but still my little brother. _

"_Uh-huh," I answered, bouncing a little on the bed. "Pony got brung to the hospital and you brought him home to play with me an' Soda." _

"_Exactly," Dad said. "And he's always going to live here, just like Sodapop. But Darry, we don't want you to tell anybody that Ponyboy is adopted." _

"_How come?" I wanted to know. Why couldn't I brag that my family had a new baby that wasn't even ours? "Is being adopted bad?" _

"_No, of course not," Mom said quickly, patting my hand to reassure me. "But we want you to be like his real brother. You treat him exactly the way you do with Soda." _

"'_Kay," I agreed, naturally. When you're six, your parents know everything and you just agree. "So I teach him to play football? 'Cause Soda's not very good, ya know." They laughed, and then I asked curiously, "Can I tell him? Does Soda know Pony is, uh, adopted?" Big word back then. _

"_No, Darry," Dad said seriously. "That's the other thing. You can't even tell Pepsi-Cola." _

_I was confused now. "How come?" I asked again. "Isn't he gonna be like Pony's real brother too? Is Baby Pony gonna know we adopted him? Why can't he know the secret too?"_

"_Of course Sodapop and Ponyboy will be real brothers too," Mom hurried to inform me. "But he's still too little to understand. And he won't be able to keep it a secret yet. But you can." _

_I was proud to keep such a big secret. I didn't ask any more questions, just promised not to tell…_

They never answered me. They never told me why Ponyboy couldn't know he was adopted. Now Soda, who had also been kept in the dark, and I, were stuck with the harsh reality.

Our brother would never trust us again. And we had no idea where he was.

**Did I get everybody's thoughts basically right, you think? Thanks for all the lovely reviews I've been getting so far, you guys are the best!**


	4. Running

Author's Note at the beginning, not the end this time! Just for the record, this one might not be as good. I don't know, you need to decide for me. And it's a lot shorter. But I hope you enjoy despite what I have just told you. And please keep the reviews coming! I love them!

**Not—Part 4**

**Ponyboy's POV**

Adopted. Adopted. Adopted. Lies. Lies. Lies. Secrets. Secrets. Secrets. Each of the words ground into my head on beat as my feet pounded the sidewalk, carrying me faster than ever before. Soda would find the papers soon, and probably come looking for me. Where did I go in a time like this? The only other time I had a crisis on my hand, Johnny and I immediately went to Dallas for help. Who was there to help me now? No, this time I would have to help myself. But just because those two weren't here anymore didn't mean they couldn't still help me, in a way. His advice was still good in this situation—take the train to Windrixville, hide out in the church on Jay Mountain, I'll come get you when things are cooled off. Wait. I stopped and backtracked. What was I saying? Dallas wasn't going to come this time. Nobody would, because nobody would know where I was going. Not even Soda knew where the burned down church once stood.

_The burned down church…_

"Shit!" I shouted loud enough to cause a few people to look at me in alarm. Some were Socs, who turned away in disgust, but I saw a greaser shoot me a wink. The church wasn't even there anymore for me to go to. Now what? I didn't stop running towards the train station. I didn't know where I would end up, but the train would take me the one place I wanted to go—away from Tulsa. Maybe, I thought ironically, I would end up in Texas. Then Two-Bit could come looking for me. Anyway, I would be far from facing Soda and Darry. Perfect.

**Soda's POV**

I knew I wouldn't catch up to Ponyboy on foot—he was too fast—so I grabbed Two-Bit's jalopy as I swung by his house. He would just have to understand later. All I could do was tear out of the driveway and pray the brakes were working. And then figure out where my brother was going.

**Darry's POV**

It's a scary thing, having your younger brother missing. It's even scarier when two of them are missing, and you have no idea where either of them went, and it's getting late on the wilder side of Tulsa. After dark, there's no telling what could happen. Gangs were out, and even though I knew Soda, at least, could take care of himself, it didn't stop me from worrying. Becoming a parent before you leave teenage-hood would do that to anybody.

My mind was swimming with the possibilities of what could be happening to them, where they could be. I couldn't help but think of the only other time Pony ran away like this. After I hit him. I hadn't done anything like that now, but I suspected I'd hurt him even worse then with a physical blow. Since our friends died, he'd clung to the things that had remained stable and safe in his life. His family was at the top of the list for him. Not anymore. And even worse than all of that: knowing it was all my fault.

**Ponyboy's POV**

The train station was a welcome sight. It was the next step in running away. Luckily in Tulsa they don't put too many guards around the tracks. So I hopped onto the closest train and prayed it was going somewhere warm, because all I was wearing were a pair of jeans and Soda's old DX shirt with a white T-shirt underneath. Unprepared. Sort of like last time I did this.

But what I was even less prepared for was when the train started moving and someone moved in the dark corner of the boxcar. And the voice that accompanied the shadow.

"So, you wanna tell me where you were plannin' on going?"


	5. In the Boxcar

**Not—Part 5**

**Ponyboy's POV**

"What the heck are you doing here?" I demanded furiously, nearly jumping out of my skin, I was so startled. "And how did you know I'd be on here?"

Sodapop shrugged and looked at me seriously, all trace of that grin gone. "Look, I may be a dropout, but I ain't stupid, Ponyboy. And I know my brother better than ya think."

I winced at the word 'brother.' He'd obviously found the papers, so what was he doing, pretending like I didn't know yet? "Thought I knew you too," I muttered, refusing to meet his eyes. Soda looked hurt. Inwardly I grimaced, though I didn't let it show. This wasn't his fault. I seriously doubted he'd known anything about this, but right now anger beat out reason. "But then again, I never thought I'd find out one day that I was adopted. Huh, Soda? Did ya know that about me? When were you and Darry planning on letting me in on your big secret?"

Soda just looked sadder than I'd ever seen him, almost. "I didn't know, Pony," he said softly, his voice tired, defeated, miserable. "I swear they never told me. Don't you believe me?"

"Does it really matter anymore?" I ignored his question even though it was echoing through my mind, haunting me. "I'm not your brother! Okay? The secret's out. I never was!"

He looked as though he couldn't believe what he was hearing. _I _couldn't believe what I was hearing, and I was the one saying it. "Don't say that," he pleaded. The train was moving, picking up speed. I hadn't noticed until now. "A piece of paper doesn't mean anything! Nothing's changed!"

"Don't you get it, Soda?" I exclaimed, unable to understand why he was having such a hard time getting what I was trying to say. "_Everything's _changed! I don't even know who I am anymore. And you…"

"What?" Soda snapped, angry for the first time. "What did I do? You think this doesn't hurt me as much as it does you? I came here to find you because you're my brother, and I don't care what some paper says, you've been my brother since the day you were born. Don't _you _get it, Pony? Mom and Dad didn't tell you because they wanted you to have a family. And you did! You still do, and you're still a Curtis, and don't say you ain't because if you do I swear I will punch you as hard as I can, and maybe then you'll start being yourself again."

"Don't," I said. That was all. I was mad, but not crazy enough to ask for a punch from Soda. I'd seen him fight. And I hadn't brought any aspirin.

"I won't," he said, backing down for a minute. "But you've got to stop pushing me away. I want to help you understand that this adoption thing doesn't change things. At least not between us. You're my baby brother, and I just want to see you smile. That's all I ask. Come on…"

I couldn't do it. I couldn't smile, even if I had wanted to. He wasn't smiling. When Soda's not smiling, it's practically impossible to muster up a smile on your own. And he looked dead serious in that moment, asking me to be the one to make him happy. That was his job. Why was he falling apart over this? This was my problem, my life screwed up here.

And then I stopped. His life was screwed up too. He hadn't known, he was as much in the dark as me. Maybe he was a victim too. Sort of.

_But not as much as you! _I argued with myself. I didn't want to hurt Soda anymore, but everything was falling to pieces around me. How else was I supposed to react?

"Where are we going anyway?" I mumbled, not wanting to break my resolve to be angry with him.

Sodapop shrugged again. "I don't know, I just jumped on the train 'cause I knew you'd be on here. This is where you came with Johnny, right?"

"But how did you know what train I'd be on?" I persisted, still not meeting his eyes.

"A big brother knows," was all he would say, infuriating me again. He just couldn't get it, could he? Soda just wanted to pretend everything was okay, that everything was fine and dandy.

Well, he could do what he wanted. He wasn't my brother, so I wasn't his keeper.

**Where do you think they'll end up? Texas? (Just kidding.) And is Darry going to catch up to them, or figure out where they're going? And where in the world are the rest of the gang (aka Steve and Two-Bit)? All in all, what did you think? Reviews! **


	6. Missing

**Not—Part 6**

**Sodapop's POV**

Ponyboy was hurt and angry. More than I'd ever seen him before, and he wasn't really listening to me. Oh sure, he heard what I was saying, but he wasn't willing to really listen and come around. And neither of us even knew where the train was taking us.

"Where are we going anyway?" Ponyboy muttered gruffly, voicing my exact thoughts. How could we not be related when we share thoughts like that sometimes? The shadow of doubt kept creeping back into my mind, insisting this whole thing was some cruel joke. I forced myself to try and accept the truth every time. It wasn't working very well.

"Don't ask me, I just jumped on," I answered with a shrug that I wasn't sure he saw anyway. I wasn't sure he was really seeing anything clearly at the moment. When I watched his face carefully I think he almost had to fight back the smallest of smiles, but it was dark so I couldn't tell for sure. "I guess at the next stop we can get off and head back home."

Ponyboy hesitated. Then, in a quiet, sad voice he asked, "Did you really never know, Soda?"

I was surprised, to say the least, that he was finally opening up to me. But glad too. "No," I answered honestly. "Nobody ever told me, and I was too little to remember when you were born. Not much, anyway."

"Do you think Darry knew?" Pony questioned in a voice smaller still. It was my turn to hesitate. What was I supposed to say? I opened my mouth to reassure him with a lie, and then—

_Don't. He's been lied to enough already. It's time for him to hear some truth. You lie to him now and he might never trust you again. _

"Where did that come from?" I exclaimed suddenly. Ponyboy looked confused. Well, either that or just very sad. It was hard to tell in the dark. Probably both, come to think of it.

"What?" his voice was tired, exhausted even.

"Nothing. Uh…" I faltered, wavering between my two possible answers. "Yeah. Pony, I think Darry did know about it. I'm real sorry. And I know he is too. He loves you a lot." I remembered saying those words to him the night before he ran away with Johnny. As though he too was thinking of that night, he answered me,

"Sure." The sarcasm was plain, even to me. I winced and wondered if things would ever be the same between the three of us—even the two of us!—again. I could only hope so.

**Two-Bit's POV**

"Hey Steve, have you seen Soda and Ponyboy around?" I asked my buddy Steve Randle as he turned the corner and strolled onto our yard. He flicked his cigarette away ever so coolly.

"Not since work. And I haven't seen that kid all day," Steve answered. "It's my lucky day, I guess." I couldn't help but grin and cock an eyebrow. We all knew how he felt about Pony—well, everyone except Soda I guess—and even though I didn't mind the kid at all, it was sorta funny.

I was about to offer to get Steve a cold one—I'd finished my first beer—when the Curtis' truck came flying around the curb and skidded to a stop in front of the house. I was fully expecting Soda to hop out of the front seat and scream, "Ready for the weekend, boys?!" but much to my surprise, Darry jumped out and ran over, looking nearly crazy with worry. And even though I just shot him a saucy grin, I got a sinking feeling inside. Because there was only one other time I'd seen Darry like this. And that was when Pony and Johnny disappeared. Shit.

**Darry's POV**

Two-Bit and Steve were right where I figured they would be—hanging around the Mathews house. I wondered vaguely if he was supposed to be taking care of his younger sister but pushed the thought away. I had my own family to worry about right now.

"Have you seen Soda?" I practically shouted in Steve's face. My voice was frantic. I needed to take some deep breaths and rethink things. But it was getting harder and harder not to panic.

"Not since work, why?" Steve answered with a question of his own. I ignored him and turned to Two-Bit.

"What about you? Did Ponyboy come by and ask you to drive him somewhere, or did Soda come looking for him?" I demanded. He shook his head wordlessly, his eyes widening. I knew what he was thinking. I was thinking it myself. Not only was Pony missing, but Sodapop was gone too this time. I didn't have a clue where either was, if they were together or alone, and how I was going to find them, especially as the light grew dimmer and dimmer and darkness loomed closer.

"What happened?" Steve asked tonelessly. He got like that when he was worried. He became detached, devoid of emotion until he got what he wanted—in this case, until he found his best friend.

"Pony ran away. I don't know where Soda is either," I said hurriedly.

"Why did he run away?" Two-Bit wanted to know, but he stood up straighter now.

I sighed. It was the time to tell them. "He's adopted," I said simply. "And today he found out." Steve's eyes got huge. I could see the wheels turning in his head. Pony wasn't really Soda's kid brother after all…

I snapped back to the situation at hand. Like in a football game, I tossed orders at them. "Steve, check anywhere Pony might go. Or Soda. Two-Bit, grab your car and check the train station, the bus stops, anywhere you can think of. I'm going to do the same things."

Two-Bit nodded and went into their garage. After a few seconds he came back out, with raised eyebrows and looking uncharacteristically grim. "Uh, Darry?"

I braced myself for whatever was coming.

"My car is gone." And I swear I turned three shades paler at those words. Because with Two-Bit's car, my brothers could be anywhere. Anywhere at all.

**AN: Sorry for the slow update. I was lacking inspiration on what to write. Hope this one came out good and was worth the wait. Oh, and please review! The more feedback and constructive criticism I get, the faster and better the updates! Thanks. **


	7. Acceptance?

**Not—Part 7**

**Ponyboy's POV**

Well, at least there was less tension now between me and Soda. I believed him now. Why hadn't I believed him before when he told me he hadn't known anything? But even though he probably thought he'd been real quiet, I heard him wince when I said sarcastically, "Sure," after he told me Darry loved me. Right. Because when you love someone, you lie to them for almost fifteen years, hollering at them all the time, and throwing them across the room when you come in late…

Then I was forced to reason with myself. Even though I was mad at Darry, it wasn't fair to accuse him—even in my head—with what happened that night. After all, when I came home from Windrixville, everything had turned out all right. At least at home. Of course not everything had turned out right. How could everything be right when two of our friends had died?

But the situation with Darry and I had been resolved, thanks to Soda. And I'd thought I'd figured out everyone's place in the family. There was Darry, the strong one, keeping us all safe and looking after us. Paying the bills, running the house, being like a replacement father. And there was Soda, the middle brother, the cheerful one, the one who always listened and tried to help out as best he could. Pulling our family together, resolving our issues, our happy-go-lucky ray of sunshine. And there was me. The baby of the family, the quietest one, the one they all looked after and took care of. The one they supported, wanted to go to college, wanted me to live the way they wouldn't have a chance to. Or that's who I used to be, anyway.

How did all this happen? I felt like screaming. Why did I look at those papers, anyway?

"Ponyboy, this isn't your fault, ya know," Soda told me suddenly. I was startled. How did he do that? "Mom and Dad should've told you from the start, but it still doesn't change things."

By now it was so dark that I couldn't see the expression on his face, but I guessed that he had an unusually thoughtful expression on his face. "Yeah. Why do you think they didn't?" I moved closer to him impulsively. Maybe I was starting to accept the facts like he was—we were still brothers. By not knowing for my whole life, I'd always grown up thinking he was my brother. Why stop now? Because of a piece of paper? Maybe that's why I moved. I'm not sure.

Soda sighed. He once told me he didn't like people who sighed all the time, because that meant they were stressed or depressed. He didn't want to ever be like that. I didn't want him to start sighing now. "I don't know. I guess they wanted you to grow up as much a part of our family as possible. Would you feel differently if you'd known from the beginning?"

I thought about this for a moment. If, my whole life, I'd known Soda wasn't really my brother, would we be as close as we'd always been? Would I tell him all my problems, and would he always help me fix them? Would Darry have hit me that night? Would Soda take me places with Steve even though it bugged Steve to have me along? Would the whole gang accept me when I wasn't "Darry and Soda's kid brother"?

"Yeah," I answered finally. "I think things would be different, but it's funny. I…" Did I like being lied to? No. Was I glad I'd been raised the way I had, like a normal part of the family? Of course. All in all, was it for the best that I hadn't been told?

Yet another question plaguing me as the train rolled slowly, constantly down the tracks.

**Soda's POV**

Ponyboy had been about to say something, but then he stopped. And when he didn't speak up, I talked for him, just to fill the silence in the boxcar. "I bet Darry is going crazy," I declared, "He's probably got all the guys looking for us. Wonder if Two-Bit's found out that I took his car yet. I wish there was some way we could tell him we're okay. Hey, Pony?"

"Yeah, Soda?" There was something weird about his voice. I couldn't quite place my finger on it, but when I thought about it later I knew what it was. He didn't sound angry, or hurt, or sad, or bitter, or betrayed. He sounded _tired_. Sounds strange, but it was the biggest relief in the world to hear his sleepy voice cut through the darkness. Sounded more like home.

"You know what I think? They should make a phone that you could carry with you," I announced for anyone who cared to listen. Only Pony was there, of course. But still.

"That's crazy, Soda," Ponyboy informed me, sounding exhausted but still answering my wild statements. It was nice to know he was still listening to me. For now. "What would the point of that be?"

"I dunno," I said truthfully. "Like times like this, I guess. An emergency phone."

Ponyboy laughed hoarsely. And then the best thing in the world happened. No, we didn't suddenly end up at home somehow. No, we didn't find out he wasn't really adopted. _Ponyboy made a joke! _

"Sure, Soda. A new phone for times like this, when you just happen to find yourself on a train with no idea where you're going, with your adopted brother." It was weak, but still. I laughed out loud just out of relief. Somewhere in there was the real Pony we were all used to.

And I was going to make sure he came back completely someday.

I had to.

**A/N: So there you go, a nice quick update! A bunch of Ponyboy with a bit of Sodapop thrown in at the end? Oh yeah, before I forget: whose POV do you like in this story the most? I know there's been lots of Ponyboy, because after all this story is mostly about him. But I just like to get feedback. Please review! **

**PS: Thanks for the great reviews this story keeps getting. **_**THEY ARE THE BEST. **_


	8. Searching

**Not—Part 8**

**Steve's POV**

Soda was gone. Missing. Nobody could find him. That about summed it up for me as I ran down to the DX. Man, did I need a car then. But since Two-Bit's was missing and Darry peeled away from the house about two seconds after hearing _about _the missing car, I was stuck with just my own pair of legs. Now who had the unfair advantage here?

Oh sure, the kid, Ponyboy, was missing too. But really, my hurry was to find Soda, not him. I'll admit it: I never liked him much. But what seventeen-year-old would want a kid three years younger tagging along after him everywhere? Well, besides Sodapop, that is. But it's different for him, he just never got why I didn't like having him around. Because they were brothers, I had to live with it. And I couldn't exactly let Soda know how I felt about his kid brother, could I?

Until tonight, the answer had been no. But now everything had changed. They weren't really brothers anymore. I didn't have to put up with the kid anymore. I didn't have to be nice to him for the sake of his being "the Curtis' kid brother". I didn't have to look out for him anymore at school like Soda asked me to when he dropped out. I should've been crazy happy to find out the kid was adopted.

Problem was, I wasn't. As I ran to the gas station, I had the weirdest thought about Ponyboy. I felt sorry for him. No, that couldn't be it. Me, Steve Randle, pitying the little tagalong? I argued with myself that the reason I was hurrying so much was purely to find my best buddy, but I knew it wasn't entirely true. Soda would never agree with me saying Ponyboy wasn't his kid brother anymore, even I knew that for sure. Shit. I was pretty much still stuck with the kid. Although…lately he really hadn't been hanging around that much. In fact, the only time I'd seen him recently (before he disappeared like this) was when _I _went over to _his _house. And even I had to admit the kid had a right to be there.

The DX, like I'd known it would be, was empty. Of course. What kind of person would run away to the place where they work? Worst friggin' hideout ever.

So, basically, we were stuck. Where in the world were the Curtis brothers? Or at least one Curtis brother, one adopted tagalong kid? And why was I starting to like the kid at least a little bit more?

**Two-Bit's POV**

Running to the train station was no easy task. Especially on foot. Oh wait, how else would I be running to the station? Running didn't help me to think clearly. No, seriously. I was glad to help find my friends, but really, I didn't think running all over town was going to do anything. Wherever they were, Soda and Pony were obviously far away by now. Too far to catch up to them on foot, anyhow. By the time I'd gone a coupla blocks, I was pretty jealous of Darry in his truck. But then I remembered when Pony and Johnny went missing in that church, and how I wanted to go to Texas to look for them. Well, if I had to, I would run all the way—on foot—to Texas to find them now. But glory, I was gonna need a better pair of shoes.

**Darry's POV**

_We have to find them. We have to find them. _I _have to find them! _

These words played over and over in my mind as I drove aimlessly around town, frantically looking for any sign of my two brothers. The longer they were missing, the further away they could be. Especially with Two-Bit's car. And I was almost positive it had been Soda who'd taken that, since Ponyboy didn't have a clue how to drive. At least, I didn't think he did. We were still working on our communication with each other. At least we had been until he disappeared.

"Come on Darry, think," I commanded myself, and talking to myself only convinced me further that I was truly losing it. Stress was mounting, and I was about up to my neck in a lake of worries for my missing brothers. The only hope I had was that they had somehow ended up together, wherever they were. And I somehow ended up lost in another flashback. This one from a conversation I had with my dad when Ponyboy was eight and Soda was almost eleven.

"_Hey Dad," I said suddenly. I was fourteen, and we were on a hunting trip. Pony and Soda were fooling around somewhere. I doubted they would be bringing home anything this trip. _

"_Yeah, Dar?" Dad replied, loading his gun. "What's on your mind?" _

"_Are you ever gonna tell Ponyboy about the, uh, you know?" I asked. The "uh, you know" was the adoption, of course. A subject I hadn't broached in years. Our family's darkest secret. _

_Dad sighed, setting down his rifle. "Darry, look over there," he told me. I followed his finger where he pointed to Ponyboy and Sodapop. Soda was goofing off as usual, teasing him about something or other, and Pony was laughing hysterically. They were obviously close, anyone who came along could see that. They looked perfectly happy out in the woods. _

"_I don't see anything different about them," I admitted, feeling like I'd missed Dad's point. _

"_Exactly. He's a normal kid. He's always been part of the family, Darry," Dad concluded. "We don't want to take that away from him…" _

_We don't want to take that away from him…_

And now I had.

**So basically it goes like this: Soda/Pony chapter, then Two-Bit/Steve/Darry chapter. Sound good? Reviews, please! Again, sorry for the slow update. **


	9. Halfway to Nowhere

**Not—Part 9**

**Sodapop's POV**

The train finally began to slow down. Which meant a stop at a station. Which meant we could get off the train. Which meant we could go home. Which meant Ponyboy would have to face Darry. Too many things coming from a simple train stop. Ponyboy had actually, incredibly, managed to fall asleep about a half hour earlier. That kid always could fall asleep like no one else. The problem was half the time he would wake up screaming from a nightmare, and it was _then _that he couldn't summon up his crazy sleeping abilities and fall back to dreamland. Thankfully, he didn't have one now. But as the train slowed even more, I nudged him and he woke almost instantly.

"Where are we, Soda?" Pony asked groggily. I rumpled his hair a little.

"On a train," I told him. "Remember? You were trying to run away?"

His face darkened as he recalled everything. Including the adoption secret, now uncovered. "Yeah," he muttered. "So what are we gonna do now?"

"Well, first we're going to get off this train, and then we'll figure out some way to head back to Tulsa," I answered, standing up, a bit wobbly at first since we were still moving.

"How are we gonna do that?" Ponyboy asked, yawning. "We don't even have a car."

"Sure, but…I dunno, we'll figure out some way to get back," I said stupidly, repeating myself. I really didn't know what else to say to my little brother.

I really still wasn't willing to accept the fact that a piece of paper could tell me that he wasn't my brother. I could only hope he felt the same way.

Finally the train slowed to a halt. I grinned, not even sure he could see it in the darkness. "Come on, let's go," I announced, and we jumped off the train.

Ponyboy and I ran behind the little train station. Now, I really had no idea of where to go from there, but I just decided to go with my gut, and I turned to my brother.

"Let's go inside, Pony," I told him. He looked at me incredulously.

"Are you crazy, Soda? Do you _want _them to find out that we hid in that train?" he demanded. A good point. But it was better than standing around in the increasingly chilly air. From this point on, it would take a leap of faith to get us back home.

**Ponyboy's POV**

I trust my brother. I really do. But honestly, sometimes he gets the craziest ideas, and I just have to come along for the ride. As if this day hadn't been weird and horrible enough, now he wanted to march into the building and practically announce that we'd sneaked onto the train and stowed away here. But I was too tired to argue…much.

So I just followed him inside—which was a lot warmer than behind the station, where we'd been before, let me tell you—and what do ya know, there's a girl behind the ticket counter. Soda shot me this smirk and headed up to the counter, leaning on it.

"Hey, we were wondering, what's the quickest way back to Tulsa?" he drawled, flashing her that grin of his. Charming to a fault.

But this girl wouldn't have any of it. She just gave him and me both a wary look, and replied dryly, "At this time? No trains going that way anytime soon."

"But we're stuck here!" I couldn't help blurting out.

"Not my problem," the girl answered unsympathetically.

"Look, do you at least have a phone I can use?" Soda said, giving up on flirting with her. Obviously she'd gotten her point across: don't mess with me. She hesitated, seeming to decide whether or not to allow us use of her precious telephone.

"I suppose so," she agreed finally, handing him the receiver. Soda gestured for me to come closer, so I did, as he dialled the number. It was so familiar to me I could just tell from the sound of how he dialled who he was calling without even looking at the numbers. Obviously, he was calling Darry to tell him to come pick us up.

But after a few moments he slammed the phone down. "No one's picking up!" Soda told me, after muttering a few curse words. That was how I could tell he was pretty frustrated. "Darry's probably out looking for us. I'll try calling Two-Bit in a second."

I knew I should've been upset that we were stuck here and Darry wasn't answering the phone, but I wasn't. Despite wanting to go home, I was still mad at my brother for never telling me the secret of my adoption. At least now I'd have a little more time to think over everything I'd learned that day. A little more time to put off facing my brother…if I could still think of him that way. Why was it so much easier for me to forgive Sodapop than Darry? Was it because Soda hadn't known either? Or was it just because I'd always been closer to him, and I wasn't being fair to Darry now?

Soda dialled another number, and I knew this time it was Two-Bit's. But this time someone picked up. Was it our buddy?

"Hello?" I heard Soda say into the receiver. "Mrs. Mathews? Is Two-Bit there?" She must've not recognized his voice immediately, because a minute later he said, "Oh, it's Soda. Sorry about the static, I'm kinda…far away right now."

I could just hear her worried voice asking where in the world he was. Apparently she did say something along those lines, 'cause the next thing my brother told her was, "Don't worry. We're both fine. Yeah, Ponyboy's here too. We're at a train station in…" he covered the receiver and quickly asked the girl behind the counter, "Where are we anyway?"

She raised her eyebrows sceptically and replied sarcastically, "Just about halfway to nowhere."

"Real helpful," Soda answered just as sarcastically. It was clear to me that this girl didn't trust us one iota, and she was not going to be any help to us in the near future. Soda returned to his phone conversation with Mrs. Mathews.

"Yeah, we're at the first stop the train makes heading west of Tulsa," Sodapop informed her, shooting the girl a dirty look as he said this. A moment later he hung up.

"Well, what did she say?" I asked almost immediately. Two-Bit's mom was a real nice person. I knew she would want to help us get home if she could.

"She said if Two-Bit or anybody else shows up she'll tell them where we are—or at least what direction we went in, since I wasn't exactly able to give her an exact location," Soda said pointedly, and the girl rolled her eyes.

So now there was nothing to do but wait and see who would help us go home.

**Okay, it's official: I am the worst updater ever! It's just June, I swear. It's so busy! Hopefully there won't be such a lag between updates after this month. Anyway, if you're not too upset with me, please drop a review! **


	10. Countdown to Confrontation

**Not—Part 10**

**Two-Bit's POV**

Well. At least I knew where my car was. Parked in the lot by the train station. And not parked very well either. Obviously Soda had been driving, and he'd been in a hurry. And whatever train they took off on had left probably hours ago by now. I checked the driver's seat just in case though. You never knew where a guy would turn up, after all. Needless to say, they weren't in there.

So now what was I supposed to do? I guess if I'd been thinking more clearly I might've gone back to the Curtis' to find Darry and see what to do next, but all that running had made my brain tired. Not to mention my feet. Man, did I need to sit down. I don't know how Ponyboy does the whole track thing. I'm a better fighter than sprinter. Vaguely I wondered if Soda and Pony were even together, or if we were missing both of them and they were in two completely different places. I doubted it though. If Pony'd been the first to take off, I was willing to bet my new switchblade that Soda had gone to find him. Shoot, they were probably goofing off somewhere right that moment! If they were though, I would kill them…

"Excuse me, did you see two teenage boys around this tall?" I asked the person behind the desk, raising my hand and then lowering it to Ponyboy's height. There. Now he knew both Pony and Soda's sizes. But this guy just looked confused.

"No," he said slowly. "We're closing down now for the night, though...why do you want to know, anyway?"

"Because I heard they were going to stow away and rob one of your trains," I said solemnly, and his eyebrows actually went up in alarm. "Actually, because one of them found out he was secretly adopted and ran away and his brother—who isn't actually his brother, as it turns out—followed him here and now they really did stow away on one of your trains to get away from their other brother—who isn't actually the first brother's real brother either. Ya dig?"

Now the clerk looked angry. "Nice try, smart guy," he said with a scowl. "Like I said, we're closing down. Now go find someone else's time to waste." He practically forced me outside before shutting the door, _hard_, behind me.

Ah, well. That's what I got for telling the truth.

**Steve's POV**

"Soda, where did you take your kid brother?" I muttered to myself on the way back to Two-Bit's house. I'd gone around the neighbourhood, checked the lot, the park, the DX, shoot I'd even taken a peek in the high school, even though I knew they wouldn't be there. I wouldn't have put it past Ponyboy to just go to some track and run laps, but with Soda along and something as big as the adoption secret being revealed, I highly doubted that's where they would be. No, he would go large-scale. Somewhere far away where it would take a while to catch up with them. But if I knew Soda—and I was pretty sure that I did—he would at least try and get in touch as soon as possible. So it would only make sense that we should check for a phone message or something.

Of course! Soda would obviously first try his own house, but nobody was there, that I knew for sure. No way Darry would wait around on his ass at home when he needed to find both of his brothers. So where would he call next? The only place I could think of would be Two-Bit's.

Good going, Steve, I congratulated myself since no one else was there to do it. Soda would've, I thought, if he'd been there. But of course Soda would go straight to his brother in a time like this. It had always been that way. Even the day we first met, and that was all the way back in the second grade. I'd learned to live with it, because no matter how much I might hate it, there was really nothing I could say or do about it. It was like this puppy that would just follow me around and I would just want to whirl around and kick it just to hear it wince one time. But then, of course, I would feel horrible and guilty afterward, and everyone who saw me would be shocked. I mean, who kicks a puppy like that? Then everyone would think of me as even more as a heartless bastard and I might very well lose some of the closeness I was lucky enough to have with Soda.

It was times when Ponyboy was hanging around Soda and I that I realized how disproportioned our group had become. Without Dallas and Johnny, we were uneven, imbalanced. Ponyboy didn't have anybody real close to his age anymore, so he hung around Soda and I more than he had before. Besides, with Sandy out of the picture I didn't really have my old "we're taking girls" excuse to fall back on when I didn't want him around. And Darry had been working more than ever lately. I couldn't even remember the last time we'd been together to play a football game. Two-Bit was still everybody's buddy, but like I said, the last time we'd been all together had been weeks ago. The group was broken, and we didn't have our superglue Johnny to put us back together.

And when I got back to Two-Bit's house, I found out that I'd been beaten back. Darrel Curtis Jr. was already there.

**Darry's POV**

It got darker. I got more stressed. I was tense and I'd pulled another muscle at work that day. Coming home, I'd been dying for one of Sodapop's massages. Instead, I found adoption papers. The later it got, the more I got anxious to find them.

I had no idea where to go or what to look for. It was highly unlikely that they were even still in Tulsa. I could only hope that they would have the sense to contact somebody. Somebody like Two-Bit or Steve…

I slammed on the brakes and turned around as fast as I could, speeding in the direction of our house. When I got there, I threw the door open and ran into the house, stupidly hoping to hear the familiar ring of the telephone. Of course, they didn't call just as I got there. That sort of thing would only happen in the books Pony liked to read.

I swore angrily and muttered a curse at the telephone people. Why hadn't they invented something that could tell you if somebody had called when you weren't home? Like some sort of message machine or something. Then I had to grin at my thoughts. Sounded like the sort of thing Soda would come up with. He was always getting mad at the phone people. Gave Pony quite a scare sometimes when out of nowhere Soda would start yelling at the receiver.

So I paced around the room restlessly. Then I banged the door behind me as I got back into our Ford and started it up again, this time heading in the direction of Two-Bit's house.

His mother was there, and she came out when she saw me arrive, wringing her hands nervously. "Oh, Darry, I'm glad you came," she said, sighing in relief.

"Did Soda or Ponyboy call here?" I asked anxiously. "Have you heard from them?"

"Yes, Sodapop called about twenty minutes ago, from a train station somewhere," Mrs. Mathews told me as I quickly went into the house. I vaguely wondered where Two-Bit's little sister was, then reminded myself that I had my own siblings to worry about. "He couldn't tell me exactly where they were, but it was the first stop west of here."

"First stop west," I echoed, then I said hurriedly, "Thank you very much for your help. If Two-Bit shows up, tell him that I'm going to go get them, would you? I've got to go."

I went outside and was about to get back in the truck when Steve ran up, out of breath and eyes wild. "Darry—did Soda call or something?" he demanded, stopping short in front of me.

"Yeah. I'm going to pick them up right now," I explained in a rush, restless and wanting to get going sooner than later.

"Then I'm coming with you," Steve said instantly.

"You sure you want to, Steve?" I asked, opening the door on the driver's side and getting in. He shot me a dirty look from the passenger seat.

"I just ran all over town looking for them. Now that all we have to do is take a car ride to bring them back, you honestly think I'm gonna sit at home and wait around?" he asked with a snort. "Don't forget, it's my best friend who's missing too…Superman."

He hadn't called me that since the "all brawn and no brains" incident. I grinned. "I didn't forget. Now let's go bring the lost boys home." It was the countdown to facing my brother. I was ready to face him and explain everything.

Now the question was: was Ponyboy ready to hear it?

**Well, it only took a week this time…how was it? Did it sound rushed or anything? Well, you know I value your opinions…so please review! **


	11. Taking the Backseat

**Not—Part 11**

**Sodapop's POV**

I was bored. I know, I know—how could you call a night where you find out your younger brother is adopted, run away, stow away on a train and end up in the middle of nowhere, boring? Well, I tend to get restless easily when I'm just sitting around. Like I was on the bench at that train station in…wherever we were. The girl still wasn't being any friendlier towards us. And I couldn't for the life of me figure out why.

"Soda?" Ponyboy said quietly.

"Yeah?"

"I wish we'd brought a deck of cards to play poker or something."

I grinned. "Guess you forgot some essentials when you were running away," I teased him. Come to think of it, he hadn't brought _anything _with him. What had he been planning on doing for the rest of his running away career? We were both tired, and sick of waiting for somebody to show up. Someone had to have gotten our message by then, so where were they? Sure, the directions weren't exactly specific, but if they just followed the train tracks they'd wind up here eventually, wouldn't they?

"Hey, I'm supposed to leave on that school camping trip tomorrow, aren't I?" Pony remembered, yawning suddenly. You know that thing where someone around you yawns and then all of a sudden you have to yawn too? Well, that's what I got.

My jaw cracked, I yawned so widely. "Ow. Oh yeah. Steve told me about that. Trying to bring all the students 'closer together in a community', right?"

"Something like that," Pony agreed with a small smile. I knew what he was thinking. Fat chance. There was no way a _camping trip _would fix anything. When it snowed in July, the class would all get along. And I was pretty sure it wasn't supposed to be cold this summer.

I wondered how my brother was really feeling. He had to know that sooner or later, Darry would come to take us home, and we would all have to sit down for a long talk about everything. There would probably be some yelling, a lot of confusion, and even more anger. After everything we'd gone through before, this might be one of the toughest things to work through. It was one thing going through a loss, it was quite another to explain someone being lied to about who they are. I'm not trying to say one is harder to deal with than the other, I'm just saying how they're different types of problems.

"How long are you two planning on sitting there?" the girl asked finally, looking annoyed. "I want to go home soon. I'm already late as it is."

"Yeah well, we don't exactly have some other place to go, if you didn't notice," I snapped back. I wasn't in the greatest mood to begin with, and this girl was driving me up the wall. I'd just about had it up to here when…

"Sodapop!" someone called from the doorway, and we felt a burst of chilly night air enter the station. Pony and I both looked up, startled, to see Steve making his way over to us.

"Steve?" I asked, confused. "What are you doing here? Did Darry bring you?"

"Yeah, he's parking the truck properly, but I jumped out while we pulled up," Steve replied, shooting me a smile. I knew he was glad to see me. Shoot, I knew he was even glad to see that Ponyboy was okay, even if he didn't like him.

"Aw, kid, why'd you have to scare everybody like that?" he complained.

Ponyboy paled. At first I thought he was just mad at Steve for asking. Then I looked past them both, to the doorway. And there was Darry, looking mad as anything.

**Ponyboy's POV**

Look away. Don't look at him. Focus on the wall behind him. Concentrate on anything but his face. Don't think about what to say. Just try not to look at him.

Darry was finally here, and it was time for the grand explanation. He looked angry. What did he have to be angry about? I was the one who'd been lied to my whole life. I was the one who had no idea anymore who I really was. And sure, I'd run away. But who could blame me?

I knew he wasn't really as mad as he looked. It was a mask, his way of hiding the other emotions that would've played across his face if he let them. That was the way it'd always been with Darry. Anger was easier for him to portray than fear.

"Why did you leave without telling anyone, Ponyboy Curtis?" he demanded, marching over to us. I had to look up. In a way, I was glad Steve was there, and the girl too. The only other time he'd been this mad he'd hit me. I doubted he would do something like that in a train station. "And why didn't you call me once you found him, Sodapop?"

"Don't blame me, blame the phone people for not inventing the emergency phone," Soda mumbled, shooting me a quick wink. His way of trying to lighten the mood, I guess.

"I don't care about the phone people!" Darry exclaimed. "Do you know how worried I was? I had Steve and Two-Bit out there running all over town to look for you!"

Well, at least there were people who would look for us if we ever really disappeared. Sort of nice to know.

"Sorry, Dar," Soda said softly. "I tried to get ahold of you as soon as I could." For a moment, Darry looked satisfied, then he turned to me.

"Let's go, Ponyboy. We're gonna get home and then we're going to have a nice, long talk. Hey, thanks for putting up with these two," he said to the girl behind the counter.

"No problem," she said cheerfully, but I saw her eyes flick over his muscular frame and settle somewhere around his flat stomach. Well, there was a girl out there who preferred muscles to Soda's good looks. Imagine that.

Out to the truck we went. Steve hopped in the back, Darry took the wheel and I started to go in back with Steve, but Darry said sharply, "Shotgun, Ponyboy."

"Aw, Dar, I wanted to ride shotgun. I called it already!" Soda complained. He knew better than to smart off with Darry when he was in a mood like this. I think he was just doing it to save me from having to be next to Darry this soon.

"You called it? When?" Steve questioned, looking like he'd rather walk than have me in back with him.

"In the train with Ponyboy, smartass," Sodapop informed him with a grin. "And don't bother to ask Pony if it's true, 'cause he was asleep anyway." To Soda, this obviously sounded like a foolproof argument. Darry sighed.

"Fine. Sit where you want to, Ponyboy," he said, and I scrambled to the back, ignoring Steve's "welcoming" scowl. That drive was one of the most awkward of my life. The only other one that could compare would be the time Two-Bit forgot to give me a ride home from school and I had to have my math teacher drive me home and see our neighbourhood, with the occasional under-her-breath comment.

Steve muttered something to Soda and headed for Two-Bit's house once we got back to our place. Soda and I sat on the sofa and prepared for one heck of a lecture.

**You know what I've realized? I am the biggest procrastinator ever in my writing. I mean, I just stall and put off writing about the big stuff—like the actual confrontation in this story—for so long. So I apologize. But…hurray! A faster update! Let's celebrate by reviewing, okay? Lol. By the way, I really don't know where the name of this chapter came from. If you have a better suggestion, let me know. **


	12. A Little Slice of Normal

**Not—Part 12**

**Darry's POV**

I sighed. This was it. My two brothers were on the couch facing me, just waiting for me to open my mouth and start yelling at them. I'd had to hold back a grin, to be honest, as I looked at them. Soda looked as if he was bracing himself for a huge storm or something, he was so tensed up. Ponyboy just stared at the floor, not meeting my eyes.

Then Soda looked at me and mouthed, "Go easy on him." And it was after that that I sighed, because I wasn't going to yell at anybody. It was what they expected, but not what they would get. Because the truth was, it wasn't that I was really angry with them. Well, I was mad that they ran away, but I was more dreading having to explain the lies and secrets. The fragile trust between the three of us since our friends died had been shattered when Ponyboy read those papers, then left them for Soda to find. They would both have questions, and I was on my own answering them. More than ever I wished my parents could be back here, just for a day, to help me help them understand. But they weren't. So I had to do this all by myself.

"First of all," I began. Starting with the easy stuff would be best, I figured. "What on earth were you thinking, running away like that?" I tried to keep my voice stern but calm. To be as detached as possible working through this would be best, I'd decided.

"I wasn't thinking," Ponyboy answered almost immediately. "I couldn't think about anything but getting away from my brothers who lied to me."

I winced, and Sodapop cringed. "I mean brother," Ponyboy corrected. "Just one. Soda didn't know anything either." Well. He sure knew how to kick a guy when he was down.

"And second…" I trailed off. Second was supposed to be where were they planning on going, or a punishment for running off like that, or something else along those lines. But that wasn't what I _wanted _to say to them. I took a deep breath, and took the plunge.

"Second is, I'm sorry. Yeah, that's right. We should never have kept it a secret from you, Ponyboy. Or you, Soda. I'm sorry to both of you for being kept in the dark like that. And I wish I would've asked Mom and Dad to tell you a long time ago," I said honestly.

"Sure," Ponyboy muttered. He still looked sceptical. I couldn't blame him.

"Why did you never tell us?" Soda asked quietly, for once sitting unusually still.

I replied, "Dad and Mom didn't want me to. It was their decision. The only reason I was told is because eventually I would've started asking questions. I was old enough to remember when Ponyboy was born, so I would've figured it out."

"They didn't trust me?" Soda sounded hurt for some reason.

"Sodapop, you weren't even three years old yet. How could you be expected to keep a secret like that? And besides, they wanted both of you to grow up just like normal brothers, sharing a room and not having the barrier of adoption coming between you."

"They thought that if I knew Pony was adopted I wouldn't treat him like a normal brother?" Soda demanded indignantly. This was exactly what I hadn't expected from him.

I sighed again. "That's an unanswerable question, Soda. How am I supposed to know what _might've _happened? Everything might've been different if we'd all known the whole time. Maybe you wouldn't be as close as you are, maybe you would be. I can't tell you about the road not taken. But we have to assume Mom and Dad did what they did for the best. I think they just wanted to make life easier for you, Ponyboy."

Ponyboy spoke up now. "Yeah? Well, they did a really bad job of it. How does finding out you're not who you thought you were make life easier for you? Answer that, Darry, and maybe I'll listen to what you have to say." Then he got up and went into his room. And the only sound was the door slamming. Then chilling, cold silence.

Well, I thought, it could've been worse. But I didn't really believe it.

**Ponyboy's POV**

I know I should've gone back out there and heard him out. But right then, I didn't feel like listening to anything coming out of Darry's mouth. I'd already decided to forgive Darry, even if he didn't know it. But for now, I was still pretty mad over everything.

A soft knock on the door startled me. "Ponyboy? It's me." Sodapop. The only person I could stand to talk to at a time like this. He came in without waiting for my consent and flopped down onto the bed beside me, staring up at the ceiling.

"He's just trying to do the right thing, Pony," he told me, glancing my way.

"Sure." My word of the night, it seemed, when I didn't feel like talking much.

Soda gave me a sad smile. "Nothing's gonna be the way it was for a while, is it?" he asked. "You and Darry are gonna fight some more, aren't you?"

"No," I said shortly. I didn't want to fight. I didn't want to be yelled at, or yell at anybody. Besides, I'd promised Sodapop that there would be no more arguments. Things had changed since then, but none of this was his fault, I kept having to remind myself.

"Darry's calling Two-Bit to let him know he can stop looking for us. Him and Steve left the poor guy running all over town while they went to pick us up," there was a hint of laughter in Sodapop's voice. He was trying so hard to get things back to normal.

"Soda, do you think it's okay for me to be mad at Mom and Dad, even when they're dead and everything?" I wasn't sure where that had come from, but it had been bugging me for awhile. Was I supposed to let it go because they weren't here to defend themselves?

Soda thought about this. "Yeah, I think you're allowed to be mad at them. If I found out I was adopted too, I'd be madder than anything for a while. Hey, you didn't see any more papers in there, did you?" he tried to joke, but it was weak.

"Nope. I'm the only one adopted, at least until we find more papers in a trunk somewhere or something. You know what I don't get, Soda?" I said. Something else had been bothering me.

"What? Why we look so much alike and now it turns out we're not even blood brothers?"  
So close it scared me. "How'd you know that was what I was gonna say?"

"'Cause I was wondering the same thing and I knew you would bring it up sometime tonight," Soda explained. "I guess it's just a thing of chance. I mean, we have different coloured eyes and everything, and my hair goes blonde in the summer, and yours doesn't. Also, I've always been tougher than you are."

"Have not." Very sneaky, slipping that remark in there. "I'm younger, is all."

"Sure, it is," Soda teased me. This was the closest to ordinary this night had been so far.

I had a feeling it was the closest to ordinary I would have in a while.

**I know it's short, but hey! Two updates in a single day, much better, right? Well, we've had about half of the actual confrontation. Maybe the reason I put it off so much is I'm so afraid of screwing it all up and ruining the whole plot. Did it go okay so far? Oh, and Live2Read, it wasn't exactly 15 minutes, but twice in a day isn't bad, right:P**


	13. Middleman

**Not—Part 13**

**Sodapop's POV**

Nothing was going to be resolved that night, so I left Ponyboy in our room and went into the living room. Darry wasn't in there, so I figured he'd given up and gone to bed. And I sat on the sofa, turned on the TV, and settled back for some relaxing. But there was nothing good on TV at this time of night, so I switched it off pretty quickly and just sat there, tossing a cushion up in the air and catching it, until I missed and it hit the floor. I didn't feel like getting up to pick it up, so I just stared at where it'd fallen.

I hated this, this feeling of emptiness in our house. The whole atmosphere of the place had changed, it was cold and tense. It wasn't just that Ponyboy and Darry weren't speaking—with all their fights, that had happened several times before—it was the fact that we all knew things had changed, and the adoption stood in the way of everything else at that point. The question that stood out most on my mind was: what do we do now?

For most of the night, I'd been the one trying to get things back to normal, lighten the mood by making jokes, and stick with both of my brothers, especially Pony. But where did all this leave me now? It was like it always was: I understood both of their sides.

Of course Pony was mad, who wouldn't be? He was confused and feeling betrayed by our parents and especially Darry, and wondering about his place in our family after all of this. I got all of that, and I really wanted to help him.

And Darry was feeling horrible and guilty for not telling him, but trying to explain that he'd wanted to, and not being able to get Pony to listen. He'd been worried sick about us when we were missing, and couldn't understand why Ponyboy didn't get that he was still his same older brother, and that was why he always did stuff like this.

And me? Well, I was confused too. I wasn't sure how to feel about Darry's hiding the secret from Ponyboy. And I was even sort of hurt that I hadn't been told about it either. I got that I'd only been a two-year-old when it all happened, but if they'd told me before, maybe I could've been the one to tell Pony about it, and then we wouldn't be in this mess. And I was probably even more worried than Darry about Ponyboy, because he sure wasn't acting like himself. This was different than any of the fights they'd had before, this one wasn't about something stupid, like homework. It was a jumble of lies, secrets, betrayal, hurt, and anger. Sounded like something out of a book Ponyboy might read, except his own life had already been far too much like a novel. My kid brother was one of the toughest kids I knew to be able to stand everything that'd happened in just over a year: his parents died, he'd been involved in a murder, run away, rescued some kids from a fire, watched two of his closest friends die, and now found out he was adopted. I don't know if I would've been able to take it all in the way he had.

What _had _our parents been thinking, hiding it the way they had? I know I told Ponyboy that it was so he would grow up in a normal family, but I knew that some kids who'd been told since they were little that they were adopted had grown up just fine with their adopted families. So why had ours been such a huge secret? And then another question struck me: who in the world were Ponyboy's real parents, then?

I decided that the only way to find some answers to my questions was to go straight to the source: and that place was our parents' strongbox.

**Two-Bit's POV**

When I got home from looking around Tulsa for the missing Curtis brothers, I immediately woke up my little sister from where she'd been sleeping and gave her a hug. She looked at me really startled, but I just grinned at her. "Just stay in your bed and promise never to run away on a train, okay?" I commanded, and she rolled her eyes before pulling the covers over her head and going back to sleep.

"Two-Bit? Is that you?" my mom called from the living room.

"Yeah, Ma," I answered, going over there. "Hey, have you seen Darry or Steve around? We were out looking for Sodapop and Ponyboy, but I couldn't find them so I came here."

"I saw Darry a few hours ago. He came to get the phone message from me and then he took off to a train station," Mom informed me with a pleasant smile.

My jaw dropped. "What phone message? You mean I've been wandering around town for hours to find them when they were sitting at home all this time?"

She looked concerned now. "I'm sorry you didn't get the message sooner, hon. You'll be staying in for the night, won't you? I've got to get to work now. Watch your sister, okay?"

"What's to watch? She's just sleeping," I muttered, and she laughed, for once the tired lines around her face disappearing. She left soon, and I went to the icebox, popping the cap off of a cold bottle of beer. Then I picked up the phone and dialled the Curtis' phone number, waiting for an explanation. It was picked up after only the first ring.

"Hello?" Sodapop's voice, but not sounding like normal. Exhausted and frustrated.

"Do you know how long I was looking for you?" I demanded. "I ran all over our neighbourhood for you two! And now I hear that you've been at home all this time?"

"Of course I wasn't at home," Soda said, more snappish than I was used to. "Pony and I were on a train, then we waited at a station until Darry and Steve came to pick us up. I only got back about an hour ago. Were you really looking for us that long?"

"Sure was," I declared. "And you serious about this adoption thing?"

Sodapop paused, then sighed. "Yeah," he said finally. "I'm serious. It's true, and I have no idea what to do about it."

"Get drunk and forget about it?" I suggested.

"Yeah right! I'm in over my head enough as it is!" Soda said in disbelief. "It's like I'm the only one here who can make things all right again, and I'm stuck in the middle, just like I always am. They're both in bed right now."

"Oops. Did I wake everybody up?" I asked guiltily.

Sodapop chuckled. "Are you kidding? Those two are some of the soundest sleepers I've ever heard of. You could chuck a football at Darry's head and he'd keep snoring."

"Remind me to try that sometime," I told him.

"And the only thing that wakes Pony up in the middle of the night is a nightmare, which I'm just hoping won't happen tonight, because the kid is drained from everything that happened today," he continued. "So it's just me who was disturbed by your call."

"But if you were awake, how did I disturb you?" I pointed out.

"Two-Bit, I'm disturbed by everything you say in a phone call," Soda said seriously. "And anyway, I can't sleep, so I was just sitting there on the sofa."

"Sounds like fun," I said cheerfully. "I guess I'll leave you to that then."

"Okay, buddy. Thanks anyway for looking for us out there," Sodapop told me, sounding genuinely grateful.

"Anytime, Blondie," I informed him, and we hung up after that. But I couldn't shake the feeling that there was more going on in the Curtis house than Soda had let on.

**You know what the only good thing about exams is? We get study days beforehand, and then I can update my stories! So I hope you liked it. I think Two-Bit might've been a bit off, but I'm not sure…**


	14. The Extra

**Not—Part 14**

**Darry's POV**

A new morning was always a good thing in a situation like ours. Overnight, we'd all had time to think about everything that had happened, and slept on it, and now, hopefully, we'd be able to talk things out more. If Ponyboy was willing to listen, that is.

I got up and took a cold shower to shake off feelings of anxiety that had persisted throughout the night. It had taken me a while to fall asleep, and I needed a coffee. Until I'd started working two jobs full-time, I never realized the difference a couple cups of black coffee could do in the morning.

When I went to the kitchen to make a pot, I found Soda stretched out on the sofa, eyes closed and breathing softly. There was a cold mug of coffee beside him on the table.

"Hey, little buddy," I said gently, shaking him slightly. "You stay here all night?"

"Huh?" Soda asked, confused in his groggy state. "Oh, Darry. I made you a coffee…" he trailed off as he touched the side of the mug, now stone cold. "Oh. Sorry. I guess I fell asleep. What time is it?"

"Just after seven," I told him, going back to pour the old coffee out and brew a fresh pot.

Soda groaned. "I didn't fall asleep until after six," he said to me, and I almost dropped the coffeepot.

"This _morning_?" I said incredulously. "Soda, you should've gone to bed!"

"I couldn't sleep," he said defensively. "You know I can never get to sleep when I'm thinking about too much stuff."

"That's why Dad always told you not to think about anything," I reminded him.

"How am I supposed to do that?" Soda demanded, but he was grinning. "It's okay. I don't have to work today, so I'll just sleep a little later." Ponyboy wandered in, saw that I was in there, and stiffened, but didn't go back to his room.

Soda bounced up, suddenly awake. "Everybody want some cake?" he offered.

"Is there any left?" I asked. Soda quickly checked the icebox.

"Aw, Darry, why didn't you make another one last night?" he complained, not finding any of his favourite snack.

"Well, let me think, Soda," I answered sarcastically. "I was a little busy trying to find my two missing brothers…"

"I guess it's just eggs today, then," Soda concluded, taking those out instead.

"I'm not hungry," Ponyboy told him. "And I've got to pack my stuff."

Soda looked as confused as me. "Pack? For what?"

Ponyboy hesitated. "My school trip. We're going camping, and I'm late."

Soda's eyes widened, and I informed my youngest brother, "You're not going on the camping trip, Ponyboy. I'll call the school and tell them."

"Yeah, Pone," Soda added, "They'll understand. I don't think Steve and Two-Bit will go either anyway, so don't worry about it. You want some grape jelly with your eggs?"

Ponyboy made a face. "It's the same every day, Soda. Nobody wants jelly but you!"

"Hey, I'm just trying to keep everyone healthy," Soda joked. I rolled my eyes and washed out the dirty mug. It came out sparkling white. Now if only wiping away this whole mess were that easy, I mused, then everything would turn out just fine.

"After breakfast, I want to talk to you two," I ordered them both as the coffee started to boil.

"Okay," Soda agreed, taking out the grape jelly for himself, and offering it teasingly to Ponyboy, who wrinkled his nose in disgust and poured himself a glass of chocolate milk. Other than the fact that the only person keeping any kind of conversation going was Soda, breakfast seemed to go pretty much like it always did. Then they sat down on the sofa, just like the night before, and I faced them. I was hoping it would go better this time. And I was ready to explain everything…

When the door burst open and in bounded none other than Two-Bit and Steve. Could these guys have worse timing? I inwardly groaned but kept it to myself.

"Hey, kid," Two-Bit greeted Ponyboy cheerfully. "I bet you're real happy to find out you're not related to a pansy like Sodapop, aren't you?"

I prepared for another outburst, but instead Ponyboy just laughed it off. But I could tell from the way he stared at the floor after that the joke had upset him. But for now, there was nothing I could do about it. My chance at getting through to him had been rudely interrupted. I could only wait until another opportunity arose. Whenever that might be. But for now, some heavy lifting at work might take my mind off the problem at hand.

**Sodapop's POV**

Darry left for work after finishing his second cup of coffee. It's funny how no matter what the circumstances, there are little routines everyone sticks to automatically. That was one of them—every day after his second coffee, Darry would set it down in the kitchen, grab his lunch made the night before and leave. He probably didn't even notice it anymore, he'd been doing it for so long.

Steve had to work too, so he just stuck around for a few minutes after Darry left, and then he made Two-Bit come along to drive him to the DX. It was just Pony and me.

"I've got homework to finish," Ponyboy told me, and went back to our room. I nodded and decided to take a nap. But just as I laid down to go back to sleep, I remembered what I'd been planning on doing. Going through that strongbox.

At the top were the adoption papers. I guessed Darry must've put them there after he found them on his pillow, where I'd left them for him to find. They basically spelled out what we all knew now: on his birthday, he'd been legally adopted into the Curtis family, blah blah blah…adoptive parents: Darrel and Jean Curtis; siblings: Darrel Shaynne Curtis, Jr., Sodapop Patrick Curtis; some signatures, and that was basically it. Oh, there was other stuff, but I didn't feel like reading it all. Then were our birth certificates…only there were four, not three...why was there an extra?

Darrel Shaynne Curtis, Jr.

Sodapop Patrick Curtis.

Ponyboy Michael Curtis.

And…Baby Boy Lawrence?

Who in the world was Baby Boy Lawrence? And what was his birth certificate doing sitting next to ours? And why did I have the feeling that everything had just gotten so much more complicated?

**School's out for the summer…lol, sorry. I'm just pretty excited about it! And that might mean I actually get this story finished once and for all! Anyway, hope this one was okay too. Thanks again for all the reviews…**


	15. It's Mine

Not—Part 15

Darry's POV

BOOM! I pounded a nail into the shingle, slamming it onto the roof with much more force than was necessary. _You really messed things up again, Darry…_

BAM! _No wonder Ponyboy won't talk to you. First day after they get home, you run off to work right away. You know you could've stayed home. Your brothers needed you, and what did you do? Hide from facing them like a little kid. _

BANG! _You're supposed to be the adult in that house. And you can't even talk to your brothers. What kind of guardian do you think you are? _

I slammed my fist onto the roof, not even caring about how it would hurt. All the anger I'd been holding back—at myself, not at my brothers—was flooding in as I worked on the rooftop. I'd already probably pulled a muscle hauling two bundles up at a time, but I didn't care. This was all my fault anyway.

_Why did you leave me here to deal with this all alone, Mom and Dad?_

If they'd been here, everything would be different. I was the one getting all the heat for this now, but if I was really honest with myself, I knew I wasn't really the one to blame. Sure, I should've told them, but it hadn't been my idea to hide it in the first place. Why hadn't they told him before they died?

_Did you really think that he could go his whole life, never finding out? _

Worked for fourteen years, I was forced to remember. If only there hadn't been that stupid school trip, if only I'd gotten out his birth certificate myself, if only I hadn't let him go on the camping trip in the first place. And I wondered, did Sodapop blame me for everything too? We hadn't had a chance to talk yet either. I suddenly remembered that I had two brothers, not just one. Ponyboy wasn't the only one going through a nightmare these two days. Soda had to be feeling it all too—he had way too much energy as it was, where would all these new emotions be going for him? He felt things sharply when it came to Pony and I, perhaps even more than we knew we were feeling them ourselves. He was forced to recognize both sides of everything, being in the middle. And I knew that had to be hard for him. All of Ponyboy's and my anger, frustration, hurt, and everything else washed over onto Soda, and he had to handle all of that and still try to pull us together. I didn't how he managed it all the time. Soon—maybe even before I got a chance to talk to Ponyboy—I had to sit down and talk to Sodapop. See where he stood on all of this. And then, finally, we could all sit down together—maybe even with Steve and Two-Bit around—and figure out where we all were now, and where we could go from here.

And then we could work on becoming a family again.

Ponyboy's POV 

I was in my room, brooding if you want to know the truth. I couldn't shake that comment of Two-Bit's—"I bet you're glad to find out you're not related to a pansy like Sodapop"—and I was kicking myself for not talking to Darry when we had the chance. And Soda seemed flat out exhausted. He hadn't come to bed last night—had he been up all night? All I could do was stare at a picture on the bulletin board above my desk. It was taken just a month before my parents died, on a hot summer day when we were all together in the lot, where Dad was trying to teach some of the guys some football moves. Darry was helping out, and somehow everyone had managed to get off of their various jobs for the afternoon.

Mom had pulled out her camera and stopped the football drills for a moment, instructing everyone where to stand, and to smile-will-you-for-gosh-sakes-boys! Dad had stood beside her, trying to make us laugh by some pretty weird faces he could make. Mom had put Soda, Darry and I in the middle, of course wanting to see some brotherly closeness between the three of us, with our friends around us. Soda had his arm slung over my shoulders, grinning while looking at me, slightly to the side. His hair was at its lightest blond. Darry was holding the football, and trying to look tough and smile at the same time. It didn't really work, but he looked genuinely happy. Not worried like he did all the time now. Beside Soda was Steve, of course, barely cracking a smile, but looking a bit like he wanted to be anywhere but in front of a camera. Hair greased to the max, naturally. Two-Bit was on the edge beside Steve, grinning like a Cheshire cat. He had an eyebrow cocked, and seemed to be mouthing something to Dallas, who was on the other end of the group. Beside Darry was Johnny. He didn't have a scar yet, but he still looked nervous, even smiling at my parents. There was a bruise on his face, courtesy of his father, and he was wearing a jeans jacket even in the heat. He appeared, to anyone viewing the photo, happy but anxious. That was who Johnny had been back then. Dally was the only one not smiling at least a little, but he wasn't scowling either. He was just looking straight into the camera lens, like he was saying, "This is it. You want Dallas? This is what you get." His eyes didn't look as cold as usual, because Dally really did admire my mother. She was the only one he wanted to make proud sometimes. I remembered their banter just before she took the photo.

"_Won't you smile, Dallas Winston?" Mom coaxed, gesturing for Two-Bit to move in a little closer to the rest of us. _

"_I'm not gonna smile, Mrs. Curtis," Dally insisted firmly. "The rest of them will, but I…" he stopped. It was like he wasn't sure how to explain it, so he didn't try. _

"_But Dallas, you're with your friends, playing football, you haven't been in trouble with the police in a while, and it's summer. What is there not to be happy about?" Mom asked. Dallas just looked at her silently. His eyes could communicate volumes when he wanted them to, and as my thirteen-year-old self watched, both my mother and I understood what he meant without speaking. _

"_Okay, Dally," Mom agreed. "You don't have to smile." She looked into the lens and a moment later snapped the picture. When she looked up again, she was the one smiling. _

"_I think it's going to be a lovely picture, boys…" _

And now when I looked at it, it was a good photo. Not because we all _looked _that great, but because I could look at it at a time like this, and feel okay again. A little sad, but better than before.

Then I heard my brother's panicky voice.

"Ponyboy!"

How is it that just one word can make you freeze and feel the blood drain out of your face? I could just tell by the way he said it—anxious and alarmed—that it was not something good. That I wasn't going to like whatever he'd found.

So I scrambled up off the bed and into the living room where Soda sat, clutching a small piece of paper, the open strongbox beside him. My heart stopped when I saw that box, where all this had started. Where I never wanted to go into again.

"What's wrong?" I finally managed to choke out. He looked up at me and gestured to the piece of paper. I sat down beside him on the couch and looked at it quickly.

_Birth Certificate: Baby Boy Lawrence. Mother: Katherine Lawrence. Father: . Date of Birth: August 13, 1950. _

And that was where I stopped reading. Because I knew exactly whose birth certificate this was.

Mine.

Okay…it's almost my birthday, so this update is my present to you! And I would've had it up sooner, but I wrote it on a computer not connected to the Internet, so I had to figure out how to get it onto a different computer, find a disk, etc. So that's my story of why it wasn't up a couple days earlier. But I hope you liked it anyway.


	16. Not Alone

Not—Part 16

**Sodapop's POV**

"That's mine," Ponyboy said wearily. I snapped my eyes up to his face. He just looked sick and tired of everything going on. "Guess she never bothered to give me a name."

"How do you know?" I asked quickly. Baby Boy Lawrence…my brother…

"My birthday is on it," he said simply, putting the birth certificate back into the strongbox and shutting it with finality. "So I guess my mom is Katherine Lawrence."

I shook my head. "No way, Pone. Your mom is—was—whichever—Jean Curtis. Mom was your mom. Katherine whoever wasn't really your mother."

Ponyboy sank back into the sofa, seeming to withdraw from our conversation. I stood up suddenly, then slammed my fist onto the strongbox in frustration. Ponyboy glanced up at me, startled. I wasn't even sure where it came from myself.

"That's it!" I announced. "You are not going to sit there like that, and Darry isn't going to hang around at work like he is now. I am so sick of you two not talking to each other whenever you get in a fight, and I don't care if we need the money from Darry's work. I'm calling his boss and telling him to send Darry right home. And then, we are all going to sit down _together _and actually listen to each other! Got it?"

Ponyboy nodded wordlessly, seeming quite surprised by my outburst. Heck, I was surprised by it myself. But sometimes exploding like that was the only way to get through to the two of them. I didn't like to have to do it, but sometimes I just had to.

I marched myself right over to the phone and picked up the receiver, realized I didn't know the number and had to go look it up quickly. _Then _I marched over to the phone and dialed Darry's work number, impatiently tapping my foot while it rang.

I didn't even wait for someone's questioning, "Hello". As soon as I heard the click of a phone being lifted, I asked hurriedly, "May I please speak to Darrel Curtis?"

"Darrel is working, son," whoever was on the other end of the line informed me. "What's the problem there?"

"Uh—family emergency," I lied rapidly. "My little brother's been hurt, and we need Darry right away. Could you tell him to get his, uh, _self _over here as soon as possible?"

The guy's tone changed. "You take care of the kid. I'll get to Darry right away. Say, what's your name, son?"

"Sodapop," I told him proudly. I loved telling it to people for the first time, whereas Ponyboy hated it. Too bad I wasn't there in person so I could see the guy's face.

The guy couldn't hold back a chuckle, even in the midst of this "emergency". "All right. I'm sure Darrel will be home soon." We both hung up. I reasoned with myself, it _was _sort of an emergency. And Ponyboy _was _hurt, just not physically like Darry would assume. And we did need Darry here right away. So it was only a half-lie.

Ponyboy and I sat in a bit of an awkward silence till Darry got home, bursting into the house in a panic. "Soda! What happened to Ponyboy?" he exclaimed worriedly.

"Sit down, Dar," I told him, using this perfect opportunity to get my point across. "Pony is fine. Nobody is hurt. But don't you two see—it doesn't matter what some papers said. Darry came running in here, half-crazy with worry about you because you're his kid brother and he'd die if anything happened to you. And I know, I _know_, Ponyboy, that if something happened to Darry at work or anywhere else, you would be just as afraid as I would be that he might not be okay. Papers don't decide who's in a family."

Darry was silent for a moment. "I really am sorry, Ponyboy—and Soda, too. I should've told you both when Mom and Dad died. And we all should've told you even before that."

"Yeah, you should've," Ponyboy agreed, his face expressionless. "And I wish you had, Darry. But Soda's right—papers don't decide who's in a family. Mom and Dad wanted us to all be like normal brothers. And I guess until yesterday we were. We fought, you even hit me, you both taught me to shoot and helped me learn to fight better, Soda and I share a room…I don't know how long it's going to take for me to adjust to the adoption idea. It'll probably take a long time. But I guess I might as well keep going like I always did without knowing about it."

I was so proud of both of them, I thought my mouth would split in half, I was grinning so hard. Ponyboy hadn't opened up this much to Darry in years, and Darry was admitting to being wrong, something that didn't come easily for him.

"So what do we do now, Soda?" Darry asked. They were both looking at me, waiting for me to come up with the magic solution.

"I'm not sure," I said honestly. "I think we're going to be sitting here talking everything out for a while, until we all go crazy or something gets resolved. And maybe in a little while we can get Two-Bit and Steve over here, but not yet. I think for now we should just keep talking. There's been enough holding back already. So, I'll grab us some chocolate milk and we can sit here all night if we have too."

"Uh, Soda? It's daytime," Ponyboy reminded me.

"Right. But it might take that long to get something done, all the way till tomorrow morning," I explained. It didn't really make sense, but oh well. He'd understand.

We were all going to understand each other better after this. And then we'd be brothers again.

Ponyboy's POV 

_Dear Johnny, _

_I don't usually write to people that can't write back. But keeping a diary or something doesn't seem like something a guy like me would do. So I'll do this instead. _

_Yesterday I found out I'm adopted. I couldn't believe it at first, but my first instinct was to run. So I got on a train and left town. But Soda was on the train too, by some weird coincidence or something. He just said he knew where I'd go because "a big brother knows". Darry, Steve and Two-Bit were looking for us, and finally Soda called them from a train station "halfway to nowhere". Darry and Steve came to pick us up then. _

_Johnnycake, I was madder than I've ever been, and hurt, and I don't know what else. I didn't want to talk to anybody but Soda, especially not Darry, so we just avoided talking to each other for a while. But we knew we couldn't do that forever. _

_Today Sodapop forced us to sit down together and talk everything out. I didn't want to at first, but I went along with it because Soda really wanted us to, I could tell. And Johnny, I guess I can tell you that some crying happened—though I won't tell you who did the crying—, and there was some yelling, and even at one point a certain someone threw a book at each of his brothers. Okay, okay, that was Soda. But he had his reasons for it. And even though he insists he didn't throw it hard, I might get a little bruise. Oh well. Bruises heal, but scars stay there forever. Who knows that better than you? I guess I might be scarred from everything I found out the past two days, but I think eventually they might get smaller and smaller and maybe even disappear completely. _

_And I don't think I'll be trying to find my "real" parents. I guess I know where my real parents are, even if I'll never see them again. I don't know. Maybe one day my birth mother will turn up. But if she does I won't have to deal with it by myself. Not alone._

_I'll have my brothers to help me. Your buddy, Ponyboy_

**I guess…this might be it. I don't know, was it wrapped up okay? And yeah, there was a lot of Sodapop, but I wanted to use someone more objective, so you would see Ponyboy and Darry, kind of…you know what I mean?**

**Anyway, if I don't end up adding anything else on here, thank you so much for all the reviews you gave this story…and don't worry, 'cause you'll be seeing more from me soon! –J**


	17. Epilogue: What Happened

**Not—The Last Part**

Just a regular day at the checkout counter. Working at the grocery store wasn't the glamour career I'd always hoped for, but it paid the bills—most of the time, anyway. Every day seemed to drag out three times longer than it actually was. There were your standard variety of customers—the grumpy old men who merely grunted at your friendly "and how are you today?", the teenagers trying to get away with buying cigarettes when you so obviously knew they were underage, and (this one ripped my heart out every time) the overwhelmed mothers trying to control their children and get the grocery shopping done at the same time. Yes. Just a typical day at the checkout counter.

I finally hung up my standard uniform apron in the back room and tiredly fished in my pocket for bus fare. The driver, Henry, knew me by now and always gave me a knowing smile when I was exhausted from staying up too late and then working all day.

"Afternoon, missy," he greeted me as I paid quickly, searching for my regular seat.

"Hi, Henry," I answered, summoning up a smile for him as I sat down with a sigh. It was nice to sit down after standing up for hours in the supermarket. The bus rolled on and I was left to my thoughts. They weren't all that entertaining, either.

I was only thirty, but I felt like an old woman on days like this. So easily did my mind slip back fourteen years, to when my idealistic life began to spiral downwards. But I willed myself not to think about it, to shut it out and live in the present. It rarely worked.

The bus stopped and two teenagers got on. Since I had nothing better to do, I always studied the passengers who rode the bus with me. The older boy had rusty-coloured, long sideburns, and the younger looked more serious, with blond hair cut short. They both had grease in their hair, as was the thing nowadays. Seeing kids like them _really _made me feel old. It seemed like just yesterday when I'd been their age, young and carefree.

Except…they didn't exactly look carefree to me. They looked rather anxious, actually, and the blond looked almost sick, and flushed. What little mother was left in me fretted, insisted _he'll get a fever! _But it was my stop soon, and I left without looking back at the sick boy.

My apartment wasn't the nicest place, but it was better than some places I'd lived in the past fourteen years. I lived alone. I didn't need to resort to finding a roommate just to split the rent. Not yet, anyway. And besides, I preferred my quiet privacy after a long day of work. I turned the key in the door mechanically, slipped my purse onto the hook next to the one holding my other set of keys, and turned on one of the lights.

"I'm home." There was no one there. It wasn't as though anyone could hear me. But it still made me feel better to say it every time. As if there was someone who cared if I made it home every evening.

I sat on a chair in my kitchen/living/dining room and pulled out the one picture I had of the person who changed my life forever. My baby boy. He was so small, I marvelled every time I saw the photo, such a tiny baby. I knew he was fourteen years old by now, but I still couldn't think of him as anything but my little baby son.

I'd never met the people who took him after I gave him up for adoption. I didn't know where he lived or who he was now. But to me he was Mikey. That was the one thing I had requested of his adopted parents—through a social worker, of course—that they name him Michael, after his father. I still didn't know whether or not they had. I probably never would. I would most likely never see him again.

I had been so good at walking away all those years ago. Now it was time to do it again. It was not good to live in the past all the time. I was going to put away my photograph. I was not going to look back again. I couldn't hold back a few tears as I put the photo away gently in the drawer of my used desk. It was time to move on with my life.

I'd done this a thousand times before. Like I said, just a typical day.

**Okay, maybe this seemed sort of random. But I just thought, to end off the story, I would show you all what became of Katherine Lawrence. And who knows? Maybe another story will stem from this. Want to hear more about Katherine? Let me know. And perhaps I will write more…**


End file.
